CO129-501-8 General policy in China 30-11-1926 - 30-11-1926 — Page 49

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China has broken up and that reunification is a remote vision,

and will therefore take no step towards formal recognition of

any Chinese regional authority. If His Majesty's Government

would but take up with the Cantonese Authorities the question

of the nature of recognition which can be given them and the

conditions upon which it could be given, including tariff

revision, I do not doubt that we should seen see an end of all

anti-British agitation in Kuang-tung. Canton is not at heart

hostile to us and, since the Russian ringleaders and the

bolshevized anti-British agitators have for the most part

left Kuang-tung, there are already signs of a rapprochement

between Hong Kong and Canton. It is now that we should

endeavour to effect an honourable and peaceful settlement; for

it is at a moment of uncertainty, like the present, that the

Canton Government is likely to be most ready to come to terms

with this Colony in a working agreement really desired by both.

In that case 1 should welcome the continued existence in Hong

Kong of a Customs administration under a British Commissioner

of the Foreign Inspectorate, friendly to both parties. 1

should even be willing to give effect to the recommendation

made by Sir R. Hart in 1898 that, so long as the Kowloon Commissioner remains British, the Foreign Inspectorate should

be allowed to maintain its office in Hong Kong and that the

status of the Kowloon Commissioner as an official of the

Foreign Inspectorate of the Chinese Laritime Customs should be

formally acknowledged. I am not opposed to the principle of a

Chinese collecting station in the Colony itself, provided the

control is in British hands: on the contrary I consider that

this principle, which has already been admitted in order to

facilitate